News from the Library
June/July Artisan of the Month is Open!
You are encouraged to enter anything creative - photos, drawings, sewing, knitting, carpentry, pottery, origami, an original piece of music, decorated cake etc. so long as it can be submitted digitally (eg photo or sound recording).
There are three categories (Students, Staff, and Family & Friends) with a prize for the winning student entry (winners of the Staff and F&F categories get honour and glory).
Submissions can be emailed by 8pm Sunday 23 July (end of Week 2, Term 3) to:
library@wantirnacollege.vic.edu.auby
If it is a Family & Friends submission, please mention which student or staff member you are connected to. Up to 5 entries permitted per person, preferably in jpeg or png format.
By submitting, you agree to have your entry published to the school community (on Teams, in the College Yearbook, etc). Please contact me if you want to submit but prefer to keep your work anonymous.
Past entries can be viewed in the AotM Gallery at the top of the Library Teams channel. We look forward to seeing your creative output!
Resident Writers
Congratulations to the following winners of Term 2 Resident Writers:
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Student: Eloise Rogers
“You.”
One word, spoken from her lips…no. Forced out of her lips, containing all the rage it could muster. One word, that sealed my fate, that made my stomach drop into my feet.
One word, that meant… she knew.
I looked up at her, saw that face that I knew so well, that I’d spent my childhood with. I couldn’t bring myself to meet her eyes.
“I didn’t mean… no-one was supposed to get hurt,” I stammered, a torrent of emotion barrelling its way through my brain. Couldn’t she see that I was trying to help us? Couldn’t she realise that even though I failed, I tried? Instead of sitting down and thinking, “Well, I can’t do anything about it, so I might as well give up,”?!
“But they did, Jordan!” she yelled, tears beginning to stream down her face. I flinched in shock. She’d never used my full name before, ever. “They did. And we can’t ever go back. Because you didn’t take my advice. Because you were reckless. Because you. Ruined. Everything.” I finally looked into her eyes, tears pouring out from them. Right now, sorry wasn’t going to be enough.
Nothing would.
She stood up, shoving her chair to the back of the room with such force it must have left a dent in the wall.
“And now, we’re all going to have to live with the consequences.”
With that, she ran out of the room, sobbing, looking angrier and more upset than I had ever seen her – no, anyone – before.
I sat there for a few seconds, stunned. Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I inhaled sharply, tears pooling at the corners of my eyes and spilling over the edge.
What have I done?!
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Staff: Linda Stocks
A PICKLE
by
Linda Stocks
She is in a pickle.
A lone gherkin
sitting in a cold jar.
The one that nobody wants.
Friends have been devoured,
partnered with
cheese,
ham,
and absurdly,
Vegemite.
Why hasn’t she been
chosen?
She’s green,
elongated and textured.
Ticking all gherkin requirements
and statistics.
She watches in anticipation,
sitting beside the chutney
and mustard.
Pick me!
Pick me!
Plump fingers come close,
magnified through
vinegar and glass.
No!
No!
sighs the gherkin,
as the enemy,
a sweet biscuit,
is chosen over her
savoury alternative.
Sorrow seeps into the jar.
Eating into evaporating hope,
as the gherkin is shoved
behind a packet of Tim Tams.
Darkness invades like a
Russian tank.
Taking control over thoughts,
feelings
and emotions.
Suspended in a liquid jail.
Doing time for the crime of
not being sweet.
Until,
the door is
opened.
Fingers of light filter
into a once blackened space.
The gherkin sees a hand,
with unfamiliar lines, and
spots that indicate age.
The hand is slow,
careful,
but determined.
It opens the
stubborn lid with a
rubber square.
Silver tongs
lift the gherkin onto a
slice of tasty cheese.
Shivers of delight
pulse through the gherkin’s
green, slippery body.
One might say it’s the
end of a life,
as she’s mushed into a
slimy pulp by crushing molars.
It’s destiny.
Sliding into the unknown is expected,
and number one
on the bucket list of any lonely gherkin.
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Family & Friends: Elle Neal
Taking Steps
by Elle Carter Neal
It was a day for dancing, Eloise thought. A week of rain and now weak sunlight trickled through the dissolving clouds and everything sparkled. But she had vowed never to dance again.
She looked down at her purple fairy gumboots as she squelched through the muddy grass. What a wonderful sound they made. Not as nice as the clack, clack sound Trina was making on the pathway. Eloise turned her head and grinned at her sister.
“I wish there was some way to tell them apart,” the lady at the grocer’s had once said to their mother. That was before the accident, of course. Now they were The Normal One and The One in the Wheelchair.
But today Trina had legs. Shiny metal legs that went clack, clack on the pathway. Faster and faster she went until Eloise could feel joy-thrill-wonder-relief coming from her the way she could sometimes feel a tiny bit of the worst of her pain. The clack, clack was the beat of a song, now. Eloise stepped onto the pathway and took her sister’s hands.
And they danced.
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All entries will be available for viewing in the Resident Writers Gallery on the Library Teams pages.
Joanne Montgomery
Library Manager